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Friday, December 16, 2011

Motivation and Invalid Arguments

So after I ran a 10-mile race in October, I informed my husband (let's call him Mr. Angle) that because I ran a 10-mile race, his arguments were all invalid for the rest of the week. (Alas, I stopped calling him on them after a couple days.)

You know, like, "Hey, I think we should watch, you know, anything else, instead of this episode of TNG* that we've seen twenty times."

"No. I ran a 10-mile race yesterday. Your argument is invalid."

To be fair, after the race, I was pretty well convinced that I could do anything. It wasn't necessarily the 'runner's high' so much as the 'hey, in four weeks I went from running 5.5 miles for my longest distance to running 10 miles, more than once, without dying! I am awesome!' Pointing that out probably would have made him agree with just about anything I wanted.

That night, though, half-asleep and apparently not thinking real hard about what he was saying, Mr. Angle said, "One of these days you're going to run an ultramarathon or something and then my arguments will always be invalid."

...

Is it wrong to want to run an ultra so I can pre-emptively win all arguments ever?

I'm not sure if he knows that ultramarathons come in many different lengths and difficulty levels or not, but I'm not going to tell him because then he'll hold me to running, oh, Badwater or something, instead of doing a nice, relatively-sane 50K. I mean, whoops, he knows now, because I sent him the address to the blog a few days ago, but nonetheless. Ultramarathon. Pre-emptive winning. Yessssssssss.

Someday. After I run a half. And then a full.

... someday.

(Dear Mr. Angle, if you read this, I love you; I'm still holding you to the ultra promise; and no, I am never, ever going to run Badwater. Even if it would mean I would win all arguments for the next two or three lifetimes.)

*Star Trek: The Next Generation. You know, like the picture at the top. We're all Trekkies here. Fair warning.